Gospel Story Finder

Brother Lowell also arranged for the team to travel to Australia and to the Church College of New Zealand and to play several exhibition games en route. To help fund that project, the polo players swam 7,000 laps in a hotel pool, with people pledging money for each lap completed. During the tour they stayed part of the time with LDS families and were impressed by their friendly attitude, high standards, and enthusiasm for life. “They made us feel at home,” Guy Baker, one of Cal’s teammates, said. The team gained enough recognition with its 13–1–1 record during the tour to receive tentative invitations to Japan and Cuba next year.

While I was serving as a mission president in Bolivia, a wonderful elder came to see me. It was near the end of his mission. He was very depressed.
He spoke to me about the difficult time he had experienced in the Missionary Training Center. While he was there his father had died, and for a brief period the elder had considered returning home. But, encouraged by a loving mother, and spurred on by individual commitment, he continued his training.
He recounted the initial efforts he had made in the mission field to work hard, pray often, follow all the rules—hoping, of course, to be rewarded with hundreds of baptisms. But, unfortunately, the baptisms had not come. Gradually he began to slacken his pace. He felt his prayers were not being heard. The mission rules seemed to be burdensome and restrictive. They were silly things, written by the mission president only to goad and irritate him.
In despair he told me, “I’m nobody! What I do won’t make any difference.” Then, as if searching, he quickly asked, “Will it, President Hammond?” For an instant similar questions passed through my mind. Can he make a difference? Can I? Can anyone? Does it matter what one person does?
Then, in my mind’s eye I saw a myriad of people and events who had made a difference. I reminded him of the work of Copernicus, who revolutionized the science of astronomy; and Mohandas K. Gandhi, who in preaching peace and love, brought freedom to his native India.
There are many men and women who have truly made a difference, I said. I thought for a moment and then continued with the stories of two others.
I placed my hand on the young missionary’s and asked him if he was ready to go back out into the field of labor? I asked if he could make a difference in the lives of the special Bolivian children of our Heavenly Father?
His attitude had changed. With a renewed spirit of dedication, tears slipping down his face, he committed himself once again to the work of the Lord. We knelt in prayer together and I blessed him that he would be able to find the way.
Although he had been weak, I felt an inner confidence in him. I surprised even myself by assigning him to one of the most difficult and remote areas of Bolivia—a small community named Bermejo near the Argentine border. The work had gone badly there for some time, with only a few baptisms to reenforce the handful of Saints who were discouraged and found it hard to keep the faith.
In his weekly reports the missionary told of his diligent efforts to contact the people and preach the gospel to them. He indicated that they were slow to listen, but that he was continuing his faithful stewardship in that part of the Lord’s vineyard.
And then it happened. Overnight a small river that runs near the village, fed by heavy rains in the mountains, rose to a height never before known. Homes were swept away and people were drowned. The only bridge connecting the city to the main road was torn from its footings and washed downstream. There was chaos everywhere.
Two young missionaries were caught in the turmoil. And one, perhaps remembering that “a man can make a difference,” threw himself into the turbulent waters to rescue many who were drowning; he sought those buried beneath fallen buildings; he gave relief to the injured and succor to the hungry.
And a miracle occurred. He became a hero. He was lauded by the newspapers. People mentioned his name with reverence. Those who had previously rejected him and the message that he carried now searched him out. Their doors were opened to receive him. They loved him. They accepted his burning testimony of Jesus Christ and the gospel restored through the prophet Joseph Smith.
In the few months that remained of his mission he brought scores of wonderful people into the Church. Today, a beautiful chapel stands in Bermejo. On the Sabbath day it is full of members who still remember one faithful elder who made a difference.

Orson’s great faith and natural ability were demonstrated through the numerous assignments he filled for the Church and the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he revered and loved. Faithful, ambitious, and aggressive, Orson was called as an apostle on February 15, 1835, after which he performed successful missionary service in the United States and in Canada. While serving in Canada he was challenged to a debate by a Presbyterian priest. Reluctantly he agreed. The debate began and lasted until dinner. His record follows:
“After two hours, the forces were again drawn up in battle array. The enemy’s fire soon became less and less spirited, until, at length, under a well-directed fire from the Spirit of God—the enemy raised his hand to heaven and exclaimed, with affected contempt, ‘Abominable! I have heard enough of such stuff.’ I immediately rejoined, ‘Gentlemen and ladies, I should consider it highly dishonorable to continue to beat my antagonist after he had cried enough,’ so I waived the subject. The priest did not appear to think half so much of his scurrilous books, pamphlets and newspapers, when he was gathering them up to take away, as when he brought them upon the stand. Their virtue fled like chaff before the wind. About forty persons were baptized into the Church in that place (Scarborough) immediately after the debate.”3

"Hello! This is Radio Halton. Jenny speaking. Are you happy and ready to go? I’ve got great things lined up for you today. But first, let’s hear some music.”
This cheery message greets patients in Halton General Hospital, Runcorn, England, as they tune in to seventeen-year-old Jenny Ireland, their disk jockey for several hours each week.
Jenny sends out messages of comfort and hope along radio waves to hospital patients. But many of those patients don’t realize that Jenny operates the complex radio equipment without arms.
At Jenny’s birth, when her father saw only hands at her shoulders, his thoughts were, “Oh, how we shall miss hugs from this lovely daughter.”
Now, he says, “I have never been more wrong. Jenny’s hugs are whole body hugs. She couldn’t have been a more loving child.”
And this love for others now motivates Jenny in all areas of life. “I’d like to be everyone’s friend,” she admits. “My greatest ambition is to have my own radio program—and broadcast to the public. A lot of lives can be touched that way.”
Touching lives is something she’s already doing. Nothing is too great an obstacle. She even completed the physically demanding requirements for a national fitness award, setting an amazing example to the rest of her school friends. The final hike in Snowdonia, Wales, was grueling—days of trekking over mountains in all kinds of weather, with only a compass and map to guide her. Jenny also has no ligaments in one knee, which causes problems. But sheer determination keeps her going.
Jenny’s sociable nature helps her to reach out to others to share her strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She doesn’t mind who knows.
Jenny also knows how to make people feel special—even those embarrassed by her disability.
“Sometimes children will point at me and talk behind my back or make fun. It really doesn’t bother me one bit. I just laugh. My lack of arms is no problem to me. If I believe in myself, then I can accomplish as much as the next person.
“There was no medical explanation for my being born this way. No one is to blame. I’ve learned a lot about myself in seminary. I feel I have things to do; and my disability is not a trial, but somehow a help to others. It’s making me a much stronger, more patient person and keeps the family close together.”
Jenny has a younger brother, Jared, age fifteen, and two sisters—Maxine, thirteen, and Kirsty, nine.
“The only chore I get out of is washing dishes,” laughs Jenny, “because I get a little wet—more like soaked! But, like Jared, I love to cook, and I really don’t need any help.”
Jenny once watched a video of herself and understands how people feel when they see her. “My immediate reaction was, ‘That girl needs assistance; she looks so clumsy.’ But when I’m doing things, I don’t feel clumsy. I’m just getting on with it.
“Of course there are days when I feel down and sorry for myself,” Jenny admits, “but my parents have taught me that my best friend is my Heavenly Father, and he’s always there when I need him.
“I can remember at primary school when everyone could write much faster than I. The teacher would be dictating, and I never could keep up. I’d come home crying. Mum said, ‘Ask Heavenly Father to help you.’
“Well, he didn’t seem to be helping—at first. Then a few weeks later I noticed I could do it! And I’ve kept up ever since, writing faster than others at times.
“When I was even younger,” she recalls, “I couldn’t reach to put on socks. So I sat there trying for hours until I could.”
School has presented many challenges for Jenny. But Church programs and loving parents and leaders have helped develop her self-esteem so that nothing can threaten her progress.
“I can remember a school debate,” she smiles, “when we had to speak on a favorite subject. I chose the Church. When I mentioned ‘Church is fun,’ everyone gasped. During question time someone asked, ‘Do you really get up at six o’clock every morning for seminary?’ At the end, the teacher commented, ‘That was an excellent advertisement for your church.’
“On another occasion,” Jenny continues, “during the fitness award practice walks we had to carry a backpack, and I felt so weighed down that I nearly quit. Usually, before such a big trial, I ask Dad for a blessing. This time I realized I’d forgotten. I was just about to look for a phone to call Mum to come and get me when a line from my patriarchal blessing came into my head: ‘You can achieve anything you set your heart to do.’ And with help from my Heavenly Father, I did it.”
Accepting President Spencer W. Kimball’s challenge to “do it” has taken Jenny wherever she want to go. She hikes, swims, skates, dances, camps, and paints. She also plans to graduate from seminary, learn to drive, save money for a trip to the United States, and be married in the temple. But foremost is her goal of conquering the waves—radio waves.
Jenny’s voluntary work as a hospital radio disk jockey has developed in her a desire to share music and words with anyone willing to listen. She loves all types of music from classical to modern and has a calm, humorous approach to the microphone.
“I think giving talks at church from an early age has helped me feel comfortable speaking into microphones,” she smiles.
The chairman of Radio Halton, Derek Owens, agrees. “She originally joined us as an assistant. Then one day the other disk jockey was absent, so Jenny took over his time without hesitation and put on a great show. Now she has her own show each week.”
With such praise from the boss, it’s no wonder Jenny feels an obligation to set the best possible example of being a Latter-day Saint.
Sometimes temptation to let down her standards can be almost overwhelming, especially when a cherished goal comes in sight. Like the time Jenny was invited to meet with well-known disk jockeys from a major radio station—on a Sunday.
She wanted so much to be there, supporting her hospital team and meeting influential people, possibly improving her career opportunities. Workmates kept pressuring her to go. But she refused, at the same time explaining her feelings for the Sabbath.
“I felt awful letting them down,” she says, “but I’d have felt even more awful letting myself and Heavenly Father down—and my workmates, too, because eventually they would have seen me as a bad example.”
And Jenny knows bad examples can break down channels of communication. She’s more interested in building them, which is obvious as she broadcasts another cheery message.
“Time to close for today. But before we go, I’d like to interview the lady who’s been interviewing me for the past two hours. She, too, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes known as the Mormon Church. Let’s ask her a few questions about the Church.”

We went to Utah on vacation to visit our cousins. On the way back home to California, our pickup truck broke down in the middle of Nevada. There weren’t any towns close by, and we didn’t have a cell phone. We pulled over, and my dad tried to figure out what was wrong with the truck. But everything looked fine. We said a prayer. We asked that someone we could trust would stop and help us and that we would be able to get the truck fixed. Within five minutes, a woman named Lori stopped and asked if we needed help. She had a cell phone, so she called the highway patrol and a tow truck. Then she took Mom and us children to the next town, where we waited at a restaurant. After four hours, Dad drove up in the pickup. It was fixed! We immediately said a prayer of thanks for answered prayers and all the help we received. We continued our journey and arrived home safely. We still remember the Spirit we felt in our hearts. We know we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and watches over us.Lashele and Sabrina Davis, ages 11 and 6Suisun, California

I love the experience President Wilford Woodruff tells of the Prophet’s message to the elders who met in preparation for the 1834 Zion’s Camp march: “On Sunday night the Prophet called on all who held the Priesthood to gather into the little log school house they had there. It was a small house, perhaps 14 feet [4.2 meters] square. But it held the whole of the Priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were then in the town of Kirtland, and who had gathered together to go off in Zion’s camp. That was the first time I ever saw Oliver Cowdery, or heard him speak; the first time I ever saw Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, and the two Pratts, and Orson Hyde and many others. There were no Apostles in the Church then except Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. When we got together the Prophet called upon the Elders of Israel with him to bear testimony of this work. Those that I have named spoke, and a good many that I have not named, bore their testimonies. When they got through the Prophet said, ‘Brethren I have been very much edified and instructed in your testimonies here tonight, but I want to say to you before the Lord, that you know no more concerning the destinies of this Church and kingdom than a babe upon its mother’s lap. You don’t comprehend it.’ I was rather surprised. He said ‘it is only a little handfull of Priesthood you see here tonight, but this Church will fill North and South America—it will fill the world’” (in Conference Report, April 1898, 57).

The bell rang, and I darted out of the classroom.
“Hey! Andrew! Andrew Hinton, stop right there!”
I was weaving in and out of the crowded hall like an all-star halfback. Normally I wasn’t this talented, but when Helen chased me, it was as if I gained extra speed.
“Andrew Hinton—just wait until I get my hands on you!”
When I turned to see if the towering figure was still chasing me, I tripped over Tommy, who had stooped to pick up a book. “Oof!” I went crashing over the top of him. “Are you OK, Tommy?” I asked.
“Yeah, how about you?”
“I’m all right as long as Helen doesn’t catch me.”
Tommy shivered, and his eyes got wide. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story. I have to go.” I turned to run. “Ahhh!” I was staring at Helen’s throat. She glared down at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, hi, Helen,” I said with a weak grin.
She squinted her eyes as she loomed over me like a storm cloud about to erupt. “Why did you groan and say, ‘Oh, no—not Helen the Giant!’ when Mrs. Haynes assigned us to be partners in the science project?” she demanded, still squinting.
“I didn’t say that, Helen,” I said, even though it wasn’t the truth.
“Yes, you did.” Her stare was like a hot laser beam.
“OK, maybe I said it, but I really didn’t mean it.” I smiled sheepishly.
“Yes you did.”
“Well … but I meant it in a nice way. …”
She shook her head. Her fists were now clenched at her side. “I guess there’s only one thing left to do then,” she said, pushing up her sleeves.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and braced myself for the worst.
To my amazement, she said, “I’ll go tell Mrs. Haynes that you want a different partner.”
It took a second for me to understand what had happened. When I opened my eyes, she was already trudging away. Why didn’t she slug me? I wondered. Then I surprised myself by running after her. “Hey, Helen! Wait up!”
She turned around, her face puffy and red from trying not to cry.
“Why didn’t you hit me or something?” I asked.
“Hit you? Why would I do that? I’ve never hit anyone.”
I scratched my head. “But what about all those stories about you hurting people?”
“Huh?”
“You know, like the one about your scratching up Billy Snead’s face?”
She laughed and shook her head. “He was riding by me on his bike and calling me names. When he finally turned to look where he was going, it was too late—he crashed into a rosebush. I tried to help him, but he ran off screaming.”
“Yeah, that sounds like something Billy would do,” I laughed. “But why don’t you just ignore people when they joke about you and tease you?”
“I try, but it still hurts my feelings. I can’t help it that I’m this tall.”
“I guess you can’t. I never really thought about it that way.”
“Tommy Clark can’t help it because he’s short,” she added, “yet people pick on him too. And what about Tara Phelps? I’m sure she’d rather talk without stuttering.”
I nodded.
“And you can’t help it if your ears are too big,” she said.
“Well, yeah, I mean that’s—Hey! Wait a minute!”
“It doesn’t feel very good, does it?” Helen asked with a half smile.
“No, it doesn’t,” I admitted. I was beginning to understand. Just because someone looks, talks, or acts differently doesn’t mean that they should be avoided or be made fun of. I hesitated. “Uh, Helen, if you’re still interested, I was wondering if you’d like to stay as my science partner. I mean, if you don’t mind having a partner with big ears. …”
“Sure, why not? Maybe you’ll hear something from down there that I can’t see from up here.” She grinned.
I grinned back.

We had met that Christmas day in Portugal with the other missionaries in our zone, exchanging gifts and enjoying the time together. The rain outside had done nothing to dampen the spirit within the Porto chapel where we met. Still, something seemed to be missing. My companion and I finally decided that what we needed was to visit our investigators and sing Christmas songs to them. Everyone liked the idea, and soon we all were gathering our raincoats, umbrellas, scriptures, and hymnbooks.
The first group of people we visited lived close to the center of the city in an abandoned monastery. These were Portuguese families who had lived in Africa, but the civil wars there had forced them to flee to Portugal. They had been wealthy in Africa, but now they had almost nothing.
At the monastery we started to climb the steps to the rooms where the people lived. But the wood was old and creaked, and we were afraid the sound would alert the people and spoil the surprise. So we positioned ourselves in the middle of the center court, where the roof leaked big drops of water on us.
As we began to sing, bright eyes and happy faces started to appear. The children, as usual, came out first, followed shortly by their parents. Soon all the inhabitants of the monastery were outside their rooms. Some tried to sing along with us but didn’t know all the words. The rain seemed to accompany the songs as background music, and then our tears began mingling with the rain drops as the Spirit bore witness to us that we were all truly brothers and sisters in Christ. We stopped when we could no longer see our hymnbooks through our tears.
We went up to meet the people. We left some Church pamphlets, encouraged our investigators to continue with the discussions, and invited all to attend our church meetings.

One of the stories of latter-day prophets that I have enjoyed that illustrates the principle of becoming is that of President Heber J. Grant. In his talk, "The Power of Self-Mastery," President James E. Faust[23] related how President Grant had started off as a less-than-stellar baseball player, yet through deliberate practice, he progressed enough until he played on the team that won the championship of the Territory of Utah. Likewise, President Grant's handwriting was so bad that his friends made fun of him. So, again, he engaged in deliberate practice sufficient enough that he later taught penmanship at the University of Utah.
Quoting directly from President Faust: "Singing was another challenge for President Grant. As a small child, he could not carry a tune. When he was 10, a music instructor tried to teach him the simplest song and finally gave up in despair. At age 26, when he became an Apostle, he asked Professor Sims if he could teach him how to sing. After listening to him, Professor Sims replied, 'Yes, you can learn to sing, but I would like to be forty miles away while you are doing it.' This only challenged him to try harder. By practicing all of his life he made some improvement in singing but perhaps not as much as in baseball and penmanship, which he mastered. President Grant had a favorite quotation . . . which he lived by: 'That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.'"[24]

More than a dozen Primary children from the Fusagasuga Ward, Soacha Colombia Stake, spent a special day at the Bogotá Colombia Temple, learning about the temple’s importance.
In November 2009 the ward Primary presidency accompanied 15 Primary children to the temple. There the children had the opportunity to meet the temple president, Jorge J. Escobar, and ask questions. The children learned why they had to wait until they were 12 to enter the temple to do temple work, why the figure of the angel Moroni on the temple spire holds a trumpet, and why he often faces east.
At the end of the activity, the children shared their feelings about the experience.
Maria Fernanda Sanchez, ward Primary secretary, said it was a spiritual experience. “It was a special, unforgettable day not only for them but for us as their Primary leaders,” she said.

In Lucerne, Switzerland, every Saturday morning Sister Martha Stadelmann is one of the first customers at the flower stands in the open-air market. She stops first for a few bright pink baby roses and then at another stall for some bright yellow blooms for two friends who have birthdays next week. After breakfast she fills her basket with the bunches of brilliant blossoms, and then she tucks in a muffin to give to another friend as thanks for her lovely prayer last Sunday. Then Martha is off to visit her sisters. She spreads joy in her small Swiss branch by remembering and thinking of others—and showing her thoughtfulness in acts of kindness.

“Where did you get your name?” Elizabeth asked Jenny as they climbed to the fork in the branches of the old cherry tree and settled in to enjoy the spring sun shining through the leaves.
Jenny had never thought about where her name came from. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I guess from my mom and dad.”
“No—I mean, where did they get it from to give it to you?”
“Where did they get if from?” Jenny repeated, puzzled.
“Well, Mother said that they named me Elizabeth and hoped that I’d be as strong and courageous as my great-great-great- grandmother Elizabeth. She crossed the plains with a covered wagon, and she walked most of the way and never complained a bit.”
Jenny smiled, but something in the way Elizabeth talked about her grandmother Elizabeth made Jenny a little envious.
“And she got married when she was seventeen,” Elizabeth went on enthusiastically, “and she had nine children. Four of them died when they were little, but she kept on going. She made hats to earn money while her husband served a mission. I want to be just like her: strong and valiant and faithful and courageous and wonderful.”
“Is that all?” Jenny laughed good-naturedly.
“Are you sure you’re not named after one of your ancestors?” Elizabeth queried her friend. “Maybe a famous queen named Jennifer or something? We could have magnificent times pretending to be the women we’re named for.”
“Nope,” Jenny said a little sadly. “I’m not named after anyone. I’m just me.”
“Well, ask your mother. Maybe she’s just never told you.” Elizabeth made it sound as though you weren’t important if you weren’t named after someone else.
“I could pretend that I was named after someone,” Jenny said, wishing that she could change the subject.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Elizabeth persisted. “Somehow when you’re named after a true blood relative, it makes all the difference in the world.” Elizabeth leaned closer and whispered, “It makes pretending seem almost real.”
Jenny smiled. Sometimes Elizabeth’s dramatic ways made Jenny feel as if they were on television or something, not just friends talking to each other.
“Jen—ny! Jen—ny!” her mother called from the back door. “Time for lunch.”
“I have to go now,” Jenny said, “but I’ll see you right after lunch.” She climbed down from the cherry tree and ran into the house.
Mother was at the sink, filling water glasses with one hand and holding Joey, who was crying, with the other. Jenny was still thinking about what Elizabeth had said. “Why did you name me Jenny?” she asked.
Mother looked up startled. “Because we liked the name. Don’t you?”
“Yes. But why Jenny and not Ann or Margaret or some other name?”
Joey cried louder and hit one of the glasses with his two-year-old fist, sending water spraying across the kitchen.
“Joey!” Mother cried and began wiping up the water while trying to calm Joey down.
Jenny took Joey from her mother and sat down. But she couldn’t quit thinking about her name. Why couldn’t I have been named after some fantastic, wonderful woman I could tell stories about? She hardly noticed her mother taking Joey for his nap or even the taste of her sandwich. Why don’t I have the name of someone I can dream about and try to be like?
“Is anybody in there?” Mother put her nose next to Jenny’s and peered into her eyes and laughed.
Jenny laughed too. “I was just thinking.”
“I could tell,” Mother said. “But what were you thinking so hard about?”
“My name. Why am I just Jenny and not Jenny named after some other Jenny?”
“What?” Mother looked even more puzzled, so Jenny started from the beginning and told her everything.
“I can see why Elizabeth likes being named after her great-great-great-grandmother. She must have been a wonderful woman. But you do have someone wonderful whom you can try to be just like.”
“I do?”
“We all do. Let me show you.” Mother got her scriptures, then sat by Jenny and opened them to section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. “Read this,” she said, pointing to verse 77 [D&C 20:77].
Jenny quickly read it. “That’s the sacrament prayer on the bread,” she said.
“What does that have to do with me being named after someone wonderful?”
“Do you remember when you were baptized and Dad and I told you about the covenants that you were making?”
“Yes. You said that taking the sacrament each week was to remind us to keep those promises. But I still don’t understand. …”
“Read this part of the verse again,” Mother told her, “starting with the second ‘O God, the Eternal Father.’”
Jenny found the words, “‘… that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son’”—Jenny stopped and read it again—“‘that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son.’”
“When we take the sacrament,” Mother explained, “and have been baptized as members of His church, we promise the Lord that we are willing to take His name upon us and to be called by His name.”
A warm tickle spread up Jenny’s back. “I do have someone I am named after!”
“Yes, but it is a very sacred thing. It is not something to pretend about in the cherry tree. It is not something to even talk about lightly with friends. But it is something that you should think about every time you partake of the sacrament—and every time you make an important decision! You are a member of Christ’s church. You should be like Him and live worthy of His name.”
“Wow! That’s a lot to think about.”
“It’s the most wonderful name you could ever hope to be called by. So don’t worry about Jenny being just a name. You have another name to live up to.”

Another example involves a book group. For more than twenty years my wife Nadine and I have belonged to a book group with some friends. During the school year, we meet about monthly. We take turns: a couple chooses a book, hosts the book group in their home, leads the discussion, and serves refreshments afterwards. We have read books about gospel principles, biography, science, and other topics, and we have read novels and poetry. I had never heard of many of these books before, but I have enjoyed reading them very much.

If lifelong learning is a priority, you will choose your own ways to make time for it.

For example, try to imagine how fragile the threads upon which hangs this account of temple opportunity. With permission I will tell you the story of an older man and wife who were given a gift subscription to the Church News and the Ensign magazine. This in spite of the fact that neither of them were members of the LDS Church. As these gifts arrived each month the couple devoured their contents; and after one year when the subscription ran out, they re-subscribed on their own and continued to enjoy them as the years came and went. Here is the next fragile thread: The bishop of the ward was reviewing his magazine subscription list. He saw the couple's name. Not recognizing them as members of his ward, he began to investigate. Discovering that they were not members of the Church in any ward, he was impressed to send the missionaries. And (most importantly) he acted upon his inspiration—another fragile complexity.

These good people were taught the gospel. They believed and asked to be baptized. After the qualifying progress had been made, they came to the Billings Montana Temple to be sealed. Their two children, who had each one died in infancy, were ultimately sealed with them into an eternal family unit. At the conclusion of this remarkable chain of events, the mother — contemplating the meaning of it all — spoke softly, "O, forever. I can't believe it."

She and her family were now included as recipients of the temple's highest ordinances and most sacred opportunities. They had come to know that the temple is the Lord's great instrument of inclusion. That while only a short time ago they were simply subscribers to a magazine — they were now "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."

As my mother told me when I complained of how hard something was, “Oh, Hal, of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Life is a test.”
She could say that calmly, even with a smile, because she knew two things. Regardless of the struggle, what would matter most would be to arrive at home to be with her Heavenly Father. And she knew she could do it through faith in her Savior.
She felt that He was close to her. In the days she knew she was about to die, she talked with me about the Savior as she lay in her bedroom. There was a door to another room near her bed. She smiled and looked at the door when she spoke calmly of seeing Him soon. I still remember looking at the door and imagining the room behind it.
She is now in the spirit world. She was able to keep her eyes on the prize she wanted despite years of physical and personal trial.

In the 1960s, a man named Joseph William Billy Johnson learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gained a testimony of the restored gospel. He could not join the Church, however, because he lived in Ghana, which had no congregations and no missions. At the time, the priesthood and temple restriction didn’t allow men of African descent to be ordained to the priesthood, which made Church organization in Ghana impossible. Church leaders in Salt Lake City encouraged Billy in his testimony of the gospel and sent him Church literature to help him grow in his faith. For more than a decade, he led a congregation of believers while waiting for the Church to come to West Africa.
One evening in June 1978, Billy Johnson returned to his home in Cape Coast, Ghana. He and other members of his congregation had been fasting, as they often did, but the fast had done nothing to lift his spirits. He was tired and discouraged because more believers had stopped worshipping with him and returned to their old churches.
Billy longed to feel spiritually and emotionally strong again. A couple of months earlier, a member of his congregation had told him about a revelation she had had. “Very soon the missionaries will come,” she had said. “I have seen white men coming to our church. They embraced us and joined us in worship.” Another woman announced that she had received a similar revelation. Billy himself had dreamed of some white men entering his chapel and saying, “We are your brothers, and we have come to baptize you.” Afterward, he had dreamed of Black people coming from far and wide to join the Church.
Still, Billy could not shake his discouragement.
It was getting late, but he couldn’t sleep. A strong impression overtook him to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the radio—something he hadn’t done in years.
He found the radio, a brown model with four silver knobs near the base. The radio crackled to life as he turned it on. He fiddled with the knobs, and the red pointer glided back and forth across the dial. But he couldn’t find the broadcast.
Then, after an hour of searching, Billy finally made out a newscast from the BBC. The reporter announced that the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had received a revelation. All worthy men in the Church, regardless of race, could now hold the priesthood.
Billy collapsed, bursting into tears of joy. Priesthood authority would finally come to Ghana, bringing all the blessings of the gospel to his people.
Missionaries arrived in Cape Coast later that year, baptizing Billy Johnson and hundreds of other believers. Since that time, the Church has spread rapidly throughout Ghana and neighboring countries in West Africa. The Cape Coast Ghana Temple was announced in October 2023; it will be the third temple in the country.
To read more stories from modern Church history, see volume 4 of Saints, available in the Gospel Library and in print.

Some of us are held captive by the misunderstanding that God rewards righteousness with wealth, luxury, or ease and that God punishes wickedness with disappointment, sickness, or other trials.
A kind nurse saw a child, through no fault of his own, covered by grievous burns. A clinical expert, the nurse knew the excruciating pain third-degree burns cause. She said no loving God would allow an innocent child to suffer such pain.
Then the nurse testified, as she was praying in anger about how unloving and unfeeling God was, she saw in her mind our Savior. He was weeping. Our Savior was weeping with her for the child.
The nurse understood. While omnipotent, our Heavenly Father does not cause or make all things happen. In our limited perspective, we may ask why God allows bad things to happen to good people. But a more complete or eternal perspective helps us understand “bad things” and “good people” with different eyes. After all, the Lord told the Prophet Joseph “all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7).

In a recent stake conference, the tender mercies of the Lord were evident in the touching testimony of a young wife and mother of four whose husband was slain in Iraq in December of 2003. This stalwart sister recounted how, after being notified of her husband’s death, she received his Christmas card and message. In the midst of the abrupt reality of a dramatically altered life came to this good sister a timely and tender reminder that indeed families can be together forever. With permission I quote from that Christmas card:

“To the best family in the world! Have a great time together and remember the true meaning of Christmas! The Lord has made it possible for us to be together forever. So even when we are apart, we will still be together as a family.

“God bless and keep y’all safe and grant this Christmas to be our gift of love from us to Him above!!!

“All my love, Daddy and your loving husband!”

Clearly, the husband’s reference to being apart in his Christmas greeting referred to the separation caused by his military assignment. But to this sister, as a voice from the dust from a departed eternal companion and father, came a most needed spiritual reassurance and witness. As I indicated earlier, the Lord’s tender mercies do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Faithfulness, obedience, and humility invite tender mercies into our lives, and it is often the Lord’s timing that enables us to recognize and treasure these important blessings.

My mother had many feelings of inadequacy as a young girl. She came from a family poorer than those of many of her friends, and she felt her clothing and situation didn’t measure up to that of those around her. Some of these feelings of inadequacy followed her throughout her life, but she moved forward in spite of these feelings. After college she attended a graduate school that specialized in child development and mother education. The philanthropist who endowed the school, Lizzie Merrill Palmer, stated, “I hold profoundly the conviction that the welfare of any community is divinely, and hence inseparably, dependent upon the quality of its motherhood and the spirit and character of its homes.”12

My mother seemed to take this to heart. She taught child development at two universities and then married and spent her life trying to use what she had learned to raise her own children. But reality is much messier than theory, and we gave her a run for her money.

Her life as a mother was challenging, rewarding, and at times discouraging. She wrote:

Every mother needs a hiding place where she can have some peace and solitude. We had a big closet under the stairs [in our home. It was] a wonderful place of peace where no one ever thought to look for me and where I always kept some good reading material.13

My mother also told of a conversation with my sister. She related:

Kathy said to me when she was a little girl, “Do you think we could choose our mothers before we came here?”

And I said, “Do you think we could, Kathy?”

Kathy said, “I don’t think so, or I would have chosen Aunt Leah.”14

My mother was also open about the great blessings that come from being a parent. Think about the constant effort and challenge for mothers and fathers “to rear their children in love and righteousness.”15 Much of this effort is behind the scenes and not glamorous, but it is vital to the Lord’s work. It is one of the unsung heroic tasks of earth life.

In the later years of my parents’ lives, we recorded some of their reflections as they looked back over their lives. Listen to my mother’s thoughts of being raised by parents who were thoroughly converted [an audio clip was played]:

They were truly converted to the gospel, and they were such an inspiration to other people and certainly to me. I just grew up with the idea that the gospel and the Church were the center of your lives. I never remember doubting the truthfulness of the gospel, and I’m sure that’s because of the home I was raised in.

And the pattern of example is continuing in the family. As part of the “Learn, Act, Share” process in Duty to God, Scott shared his testimony of scripture study with his younger brother, Josh, who is a deacon. Scott wrote him this note to encourage him to read the scriptures:
“Josh, I don’t know if you have started reading the Book of Mormon by yourself or not. But if you haven’t, I would challenge you to start. The Book of Mormon has been a huge influence on strengthening my testimony. I know that it is the word of God. I love you and want to be with you forever in the celestial kingdom. I know that my life has been blessed through the teachings of the Book of Mormon, and yours can be too.”
Now, Josh has set a plan in Duty to God to read his scriptures every day and to keep a scripture journal—following the examples of both his older brothers.